me tarzan you jane

howie klein, guesting over at fdl, discusses the "increasingly contentious" race between jane "oops, i guess i do care bush wiretaps since an election is coming up"harman and challenger marcy winograd.

we at skippy international, whose headquarters are situated in the district the jane currently represents (and that marcy hopes to), are taking great interest in this race, and enjoy what howie has to say:

harman has been fighting like a mad dog to keep her committee status– even to the point of ignoring winograd’s challenge, a mistake that has cost her in the district. (her latest tactic has been to lobby insider journalists– you know, the regular suspects like joe klein– to write articles about how indispensable she is and how unfit her successor, alcee hastings would be.) one congressman told the weekly that “having joe klein write up your point of view is not the most effective tactic to shape Pelosi’s thinking."

funny how out-of-touch harman is not to be able to figure that out herself. of course, if she pulled her head out of bush’s ass, she probably wouldn’t be as disliked as she is by members of her own caucus and by grassroots democrats back home. and, although i recognize what a tough journey it is for a under-funded challenger to go up against a powerful incumbent, if anyone can do it, it is marcy winograd. click here if you’d like to send marcy some last minute support. and if you’re in the neighborhood next weekend (as well as monday and tuesday), marcy’s campaign would love some more volunteers to help out.

Haditha

The White House has said that, when the official investigations into the alleged murder of civilians by Marines at Haditha have concluded, the results will be made public. The White House is glossing over the fact that George Bush, the Commander-in-Chief of all branches of the United States military, did not know about the allegations until he was asked about them by a Time reporter months after Time had published the story. In all fairness, nobody is criticizing George Bush for not knowing about this since nobody ever thought he knew anything about anything.

Haditha is a spectacularly illustrative point in a succession of atrocities, the war itself being less an atrocity than an incredible error, the pebble kicked down the mountainside that starts the rock-slide that dislodges the damn that floods the city. The crimes of Guantanamo Bay were only the beginning of the Abu Ghraibs that were part and parcel of the Hadithas. This is what so many of us have been talking about, the things that have been ignored by so many others, or shrugged off as the price of war. But these are the things to which ignoring the standards of the Constitution lead. These are the things that spying on Americans without warrants, without probable cause, without even a nod in the direction of the Fourth Amendment can become. These are the things that a war of aggression started for a lie and continued for the sake of politics can become.

The American people lowered the standards first by electing an incompetent circus act as president, a fake cowboy from Connecticut with a fake Texas accent, a graduate of Andover, Yale, and Harvard pretending to be a folksy, down-home, country boy who made good despite the hardship of having grown up wealthy and privileged and never having had to work a day in his life. The American people lowered the standards and the fake cowboy, whose competence has never been questioned because it never existed, performed exactly as common sense says you could expect: he failed miserably and dragged the rest of us down with him.

(Cross-posted from Blanton's and Ashton's, where we like to slip out of our wet clothes and into a dry martini.)

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

mixed emotions

ms. dozier's reports from iraq were concise, clear and authorative, and we found her to be a reporter which we respected. when we heard it was she who got injured in the terrible suicide attack, we were a bit shaken. we wish her and her family all the best.

however, why now? states something that lurks in the back of our minds:

maybe it’s just me, but i have a responsibility for the soldiers sent to iraq. the cbs people had a choice. if the media would report the deaths of the american military personnel with as much dispatch as they report the death and injury of journalists, something might actually get done about bringing this mess to an end.

now, we are not blaming the victim here. we sincerely hope the best for ms. dozier, as we admire her work, and were truly upset to hear it was she that suffered the attack.

but we also wonder, along with why now?, if the press had made the same fuss over the previous 2465 deaths of american military personnel, maybe this war would have been over long before today.

ever go to egypt?

say hello

why doesn't awol remember the veterans on memorial day?

the bosglobe points out the irony of awol's approach to the military: send them to die, then scrap their benefits when if they get home:

today, many of president bush's strongest supporters call the va a welfare system. his critics claim he is working to dismantle the va, to ultimately privatize its services.

bush, who sends soldiers to risk their lives every day in iraq, strongly supports rescinding the lifetime healthcare benefits promised to wwii and korean veterans. his proposed budgets, despite dollar amount increases, don't factor in inflation or the increasing numbers of veterans needing healthcare, and thus have repeatedly failed to fully fund benefits to the men and women who have served our country.

consequently, va hospitals and clinics have closed, many veterans' healthcare programs have been cut back or eliminated, entire groups of vets have been denied eligibility for service, and those that are eligible may wait months and even years for appointments and necessary surgeries at the remaining va facilities.

but the president lectures us about the importance of supporting our troops.

May 29, 1917

The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.

memorial day...

in flanders fields, the poppies blowbetween the crosses, row on row,that mark our place; and in the skythe larks, still bravely singing, flyscarce heard amid the guns below.

we are the dead.short days agowe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,loved, and were loved, and now we liein flanders fields.

take up your quarrel with the foe:to you from failing hands we throwthe torch, be yours to hold it high.if ye break faith with us who die,we shall not sleep, though poppies growin flanders fields.

(john mccrae, "in flanders fields")

* * *

"...i've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have had it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. they serve so that we don't have to. they offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. it is remarkably their gift to us. and all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary.

mr. kerry, accused even by democrats of failing to respond to the charges during the campaign, is now fighting back hard.

"they lied and lied and lied about everything," mr. kerry says in an interview in his senate office. "how many lies do you get to tell before someone calls you a liar? how many times can you be exposed in america today?"

his supporters are compiling a dossier that they say will expose every one of the swift boat group's charges as a lie and put to rest any question about mr. kerry's valor in combat. while it would be easy to see this as part of mr. kerry's exploration of another presidential run, his friends say the swift boat charges struck at an experience so central to his identity that he would want to correct the record even if he were retiring from public life.

which he might as well do, considering he's two years too late for any of this to matter. the times itself points out later in the piece:

mr. kerry has signed forms authorizing the navy to release his record — something he resisted during the campaign — and hired a researcher to comb the naval archives in washington for records that could pinpoint his whereabouts during dates of the incidents in dispute. another former crew member has spent days at a time interviewing veterans to reconstruct every incident in question.

[ed. note: emphasis, and snarky rolling of the eyes, ours.]

forgive our collective sigh of "so what?", but it seems to us that if he had put half of this effort into this very project back when it was actually happening during his campaign, we might have been blogging about president kerry right now. not because the actual truth would have changed anyone's minds, so much, but the sight of a decisive, courageous man ready to take on the lying press would have swayed several hundreds of thousands of voters to his camp (and all we needed in ohio were a few hundred).

Memorial Day Weekend Tradition in Santa Barbara

goring the truth

the rude pundit went to see al gore talk about his new flick "an inconvenient truth" last night in nyc:

essentially, gore's mission on global warming is rhetorically similar to george bush's mission in iraq: revolution now so that the future can be secure. the difference, of course, is that gore isn't a liar, and he doesn't have to hype the evidence. gore approaches his subject the way every politician ought to lead: he knows he's right, and he's so right that others are wrong. when gore was asked about scientists who say that climatic change is just part of ongoing natural cycles, gore didn't pander, didn't offer that idiotic "well, good people can have differences of opinion" bullshit the bush administration uses to paper over their lies. no, gore just said that the questioner was wrong. that the vast scientific consensus says global warming is real and happening. and to believe otherwise is to believe liars. he said scientists who say otherwise are industrial "prostitutes" and "camp followers" (he hesitated before saying that - you knew he wanted to say "whores" or "skanky, disease-ridden bitches").

gore was often spanked in the press for sounding smart and right about everything. but if you have a problem with someone calling out motherfuckers for fucking their mothers, then perhaps you need to take another look at who's in your bed. you look at gore now and you can't help but think that perhaps we've moved past the forrest gump-ish wisdom of the stupid phase and want the cold comfort of a poindexter telling us what's real. it's been said, and it's true, that gore is liberated now. he was marginalized and now he's moving back to the center of the national discourse.

Veterans Home Sues Rumsfeld

over substandard care. (we know how much this administration loves our veterans by giving those multimillionaires taxbreaks...)

sixteen residents of the u.s. armed forces retirement home in washington d.c. this week filed a class-action suit against the government and the facility, alleging budget cuts by the defense department have resulted in poor medical care.

more than 1,000 residents cannot get prescriptions and regular doctor checkups due to service cuts since the defense department installed new management, the suit claims. because of the cuts, the number of deaths at the home increased from 59 in 2000 to 131 in 2003, according to the suit, which was filed on behalf of all residents. - mcknightsonline.com

all blogs that's fit to print

the nytimes mag (via talkleft) gives us a preview of next month's ykos. and it's not too bad a piece:

this is, at best, an imperfect view of online activists, many of whom disdain traditional interest groups and can't seem to agree on what to call themselves, let alone on any common agenda. even so, the politicians may understand the real significance of this first blogger convention of its kind better than some of the bloggers themselves, who imagine that cyberpolitics is no less than a reinvention of the public square, the harbinger of a radically different era in which politicians will connect to their constituents electronically and voters will organize in virtual communities. politicians know that politics is, by its nature, a tactile business. new technology may change the way partisans organize and debate, and it may even spawn an entirely new political culture. but at the end of the day, partisans will inevitably be drawn to sit across the table from the candidates they support or oppose, just as votes will still be won and lost in banquet halls and airport hangars and all the other seedy, sweaty stalls of the political marketplace. online politics can't flourish in the virtual realm alone, any more than an online romance can be consummated through instant messaging.

scapegoat, noun: one made to bear the guilt of others; synonym: sacrificial lamb...

a former arthur andersen employee on the way his company was turned into the fall guy for the accounting fraud and conspiracy scandal that leveled enron:

...there was a lot, i mean a lot that the andersen folks were not privy to. especially stuff that went on at the top and was hidden from andersen auditors. of course, there is enough blame to be spread around. but the job of an auditor is to make sure that things aren't out of whack, and lots of that is based on the client's management, the management representations, information provided by the client and other things that are done by the client. there were fraudulent documents that were provided by enron management. there were schemes that were hidden form andersen. but of course, andersen does deserve a share of the blame.

both my wife and i swore (even back in late 2001/early 2002) that we were done with bu$hco because of bush and cheney's relationship with lay and the enron crew, and us losing our jobs because of it. it is clear to us that cheney and the justice department were more interested in finding a scapegoat and moving on.

andersen was that scapegoat. little did we know at the time how effectively this administration would rely on the "scapegoat" strategy...

my readers are probably getting tired of reading this, but i've been saying essentially the same thing about lay and skilling that this guy's saying about arthur andersen, and given that wanton irresponsibility is treated like a virtue by too many adults who certainly know better these days, i cannot emphasize this point enough: ceos have have a clear-cut responsibility to know what's going on in their companies. this is because ceos answer to their boards of directors, and these boards' interests are the same as those of investors. doesn't matter whether it's an accounting firm like andersen, an energy trading firm like enron, a bank, a legal firm, or a fast food chain -- those who choose to buy stock from any given corporation are entitled to know, at least in general but honest terms, how that corporation is functioning. the stock market is risky enough without corporate executives stringing investors along for their own gain.

be vewy vewy quiet...it's hunting season

deer are being blamed in attacks on three more people on southern illinois university’s campus, a year after at least seven students and staffers were threatened or injured by overly protective mother does during fawning season, police said wednesday.

the latest encounters happened separately tuesday afternoon within minutes of each other on a footpath along campus lake, prompting assumptions that the same doe was responsible, said todd sigler, the school’s public safety chief. two of the victims sought medical treatment.

the recent attacks were earlier in the fawning season than a series of them that came last june. then, three attacks by possibly different deer sent four people to the hospital, also mostly with minor injuries. the spring fawning season generally peaks in june…

concerned about last year’s cases, siu officials last week launched a public-awareness campaign to implore anyone on the 20,000-student campus to watch out for deer, to not approach the animals and, if a wild-eyed deer starts bounding their way, run.

calling it like she sees it

"it (fighting terrorism) never did call for tanks, jets or carriers - just a combination of good detectives and good intelligence. in other words, smart, clever people with language skills. all of which we have fully available to us because of ... immigration. lebanese, iraqis, iranians, syrians, pakistanis and indonesians have all become americans, and in so many cases we got the bravest of the brave - those who fought saddam, the ayatollah and assad, lebanese who saw their country torn apart by religious factions. these are americans who know the culture and language of the middle east and other islamic countries, and who care deeply about how it all comes out."yes, i am actually calling them racist, by molly ivins, truthout, may 22, 2006

beach season starts this weekend

whoopie!

according to a ucla study released last week, the top layer of sand at many los angeles county beaches is harboring bacteria usually associated with feces, giving beachgoers more reason to wash up after a day in the sun.

....the tests showed that e. coli and enterococci bacteria were prevalent in the top layer of sand even when the water tested clean. the highest concentrations were found in the sand on enclosed beaches — the kind often favored by parents with toddlers. - ventura county star

Saturday, May 27, 2006

dogsit barney and date jenna

(or is that vice versa?) and get a special pass into "hahvahd" business school.

a 26-year-old college dropout who carries president bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at harvard business school (hbs) - the crimson and the nation

Jackie, from Brooklyn, NY writes:Hi Blake, you are doing a great job, I would like to know what is that bag that you always carry on your shoulder, when you are following the President. and, are you part of the secret service? I see you always talk to them.

Thanks a lot

Blake GottesmanFortunately for the President and the country, I am not - in any way - responsible for the President's safety. I do work closely with them, though. All the men and women of the Secret Service, especially the Presidential Protection Division (PPD), do a fantastic job, and I am proud to call many of them my friends.

The bag just has hair products for me. I keep all the President's official stuff in my suit pockets.

chip the foreigners

verichip's silverman bandied about the idea of chipping foreigners on national television tuesday, emboldened by the bush administration call to know "who is in our country and why they are here." he told fox & friends that the verichip could be used to register guest workers, verify their identities as they cross the border, and "be used for enforcement purposes at the employer level." he added, "we have talked to many people in washington about using it...."

the numbering and chipping of people seems like a plot from a dystopian novel, but the company has gotten the buy-in from highly placed current and former government officials, including columbian president alvaro uribe. he reportedly told senator arlen specter (r-pa) that he would consider having microchips implanted into colombian workers before they are permitted to enter the united states to work on a seasonal basis.

...tommy thompson, former secretary of health and human services joined the board of verichip corporation after leaving his bush administration cabinet post. shortly thereafter, he went on national television recommending that all americans get chipped as a way to link to their medical records. he also suggested the verichip could replace military dog tags, and a spokesman boasted that the company had been in talks with the pentagon. - spychips

law & order: suv

gotta know when to fold'em

and know when to hold'em (moronic politicos) accountable.

beginning next month, washington residents who play poker or make other types of wagers on the internet will be committing a class c felony, equivalent under the law to possessing child pornography, threatening the governor or torturing an animal.

although the head of the state gambling commission says it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest, the new law carries stiff penalties: as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. - seattle pi

so...going into a card club and playing some staked poker games is legal but doing it at home online is a felony?

yeah...we're making friends in iraq

photographs taken by a marine intelligence team have convinced investigators that a marine unit killed as many as 24 unarmed iraqis, some of them "execution-style," in the insurgent stronghold of haditha after a roadside bomb killed an american in november, officials close to the investigation said friday.

the pictures are said to show wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children. some were shot in the head and some in the back, congressional and defense officials said. - latte times

email to sen. murray

the nsa shouldn't be spying on americans without a warrant. what the hell were you thinking when you voted for generallisimo hayden? please resign immediately, sen. murray, your vote for fascism was not why i voted for you in 2004. have you no shame? have you no respect for the american constitution? how could you vote for this lawless man? please do not run in 2010. i will support whoever runs against you.

Friday, May 26, 2006

say hello

skippy's long lost cousin

coca cola plant's twin tubewells siphon off close to 2.5 million of litres of drinking water a day from the district's aquifer, resulting in a sharp fall in ground water levels, dry wells and hand-pumps, and the destruction of local agriculture. the company has also been charged with polluting fields and water bodies with toxic effluents, lowering farm yield, encroaching on government land, and intimidating local dissenters.

smoke 'em if you got 'em

the new findings "were against our expectations," said donald tashkin of the university of california at los angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"we hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "what we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. however, marijuana also contains the chemical thc, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

and the "best analogy of the week award" goes to

mahablog, for this one:

sure there is still plenty of politicking going on in banquet halls and airport hangars. but these days most politics happens in media, not in the flesh. and the biggest part of that media is electronic — television and radio — with political hacks and professional insiders serving as the self-appointed proxies of we, the people.

in the mass media age political discourse devolved into something like puppet theater. we turn on the little puppet theater box in our living rooms and watch representative partisans bash each other like punch and judy. and we know their strings are being pulled by more powerful forces hidden behind the scenery. the performance may be entertaining, but the audience can only watch, passively. the audience has no part in the script.

are those flip-flops you're wearing or have you suddenly become happy to see us?

quote of the day

kevin, of lean left (a blog that deserves widespread praise and readership, in our opinion), on today's press corp:

god help us all, we are ruled by fifty year old high schoolers. that is the defining fact of the last two decades. the country is cursed with press more interest din gossip than reality, more concerned with their notions of in and out than with good policy and bad. the democrats simply cannot sit back and assume the press will do its job. they have given ample notice tis week that they are quite content to play their high school games and drown out the real news with catty nonsense and “did you see what he was wearing” and “i heard that she doesn’t really like him” and “omigod! he is so cool. pas s him a note in chem asking if he has a girlfriend!”

whose lie?

a military investigation into the deaths of two dozen iraqis last november is expected to find that a small number of marines in western iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, congressional, military and pentagon officials said thursday.

an image from videotape taken shortly after a fatal raid in haditha, iraq. residents there said several marines carried out unprovoked killings.

two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines’ defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. that possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by american ground forces in iraq.

officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in sunni-dominated anbar province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. a separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.

evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.

friday cockatiel blogging

Desmond and Hamza

Hamza El Din video

Desmond Dekker video

The loss of two great talents was announced today – Desmond Dekker and Hamza El Din.

Dekker’s song “Israelites” was a surprise hit out of Jamaica in the 1960’s, long before reggae became trendy or popular.(The same thing happened with “My Boy Lollipop” by Millie Small.)Teenagers across America and the UK puzzled over the lyrics, which said (more or less) “my wife and-a kids they pack up and leave me/darling she said I was yours to receive/I don’t want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.”

Desmond was a brilliant singer and songwriter.He was slated to star in “The Harder They Come” but had to bow out for health reasons.Jimmy Cliff got the role and became a huge star.Desmond had written “You Can Get It If You Really Want” for the movie, and it became a Cliff hit.My son and I were just listening to his records on our road trip this week – but then, that’s no real coincidence.He’s a family favorite, so we listen to him often.

Desmond Dekker died at 64.The AP obit for him says that he was a “welder” before becoming a singer, but then lots of reggae singers (including Bob Marley) told hapless reporters they had been welders – since “welding” was a Jamaican euphemism for sex.

Hamza El Din played the oud, a Middle Eastern lute – beautifully – and sang both traditional and modern songs.He helped bring Arab and Nubian music to the West, as well as embodying the gentle Muslim tradition of courtesy and gentility known as “adab.”He played with the Grateful Dead, taught music in San Francisco, and worked for years to open cross-cultural doors.He was 76.

Gunshots in DC at Rayburn Office Building garage

There's a report that there were gunshots in the Rayburn Office Building garage that I have seen at CNN and Yahoo, but there is no more information on it than that, except to say that he capitol is "on lockdown", whatever that means. I'll post more if I get more.

UPDATE: This is everything that CNN has right now:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Capitol Police said Friday they were investigating reports of shots fired in the garage of the Rayburn Office Building, where members of the House have their offices.

What is "net neutrality" and why should you support it?

It also makes clear why everyone who isn't actually in charge of a large corporation should support net neutrality. Small business owners and employees, mid-size business owners and employees, anyone who sends email, anyone who wants to be able to use the Internet for any reason, should be calling their representatives in Washington and telling those representatives to support net neutrality.

and now, some actual great news...

the bill for net neutrality, house resolution 5417, was passed by the house judiciary committee yesterday, 20-13. now it goes to the full house. the c-level heads of soulless telecoms who have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into their efforts to screw up the internet for their own enrichment will just have to wait a little longer. pity that.

oh, which reminds me: at&t is one of those soulless telecoms. the same at&t that happily hands its customers' phone records to the nsa. the same at&t that has been my long-distance carrier for fourteen years. and this is how at&t treats me. it might be time to sign on with a new long-distance carrier. anyway...

it's also the kind of milk we drink

rohe v. waif

"spineless suck-ups"? exactly who did jean rohe suck up to, exactly? it certainly wasn't john mccain or new school president bob kerrey. she laid those elders out.And the last time I looked it was john mccain losing his soul to "the man" at liberty.

but as for insulting ms. coulter's "intelligence," well, that hardly is worth the effort. we're talking about a woman who hails senator joseph mccarthy as a hero. she's a soft sister from connecticut, trumpeting spiritually and connectivity when no one wants to claim her. she's a hypocrite of the highest order. no wonder she and sean hannity are pals.

ann coulter, stossel and the dean of disinformation, david horowitz, believe that the anti-establishment rebels in colleges across this country are all leaning republican.

who's buying that one?

why would young people, who have their lie detectors on lock and load, buy what over 60% of america aren't buying anymore? they aren't, they won't and they don't.

wake up and smell the wingnut fairy tale burning, because no one is leaning republican anymore.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

the cookie jar rant...beware the chips are flying

i'm mad as hades and not going to take it anymore.

campaign commercials come fast and furious in california around voting time. the state is undergoing some serious issues that we have to face up to and find solutions for. but you couldn't tell that from the sludge, aka campaign spots, of the two democratic "goobernatorial" challengers - steve westly and phil angelides.

i got fed up. i decided to let some fellow "donks" know that i will not be voting for either phil or steve. if neither could talk like an adult, they didn't deserve my vote. if neither could talk about themselves without playing moronic high school "tit for tat" slime tossing...why should i expect anything different should they get into office?

i called dr. dean's office at the national level. the office has always been great when i have called up with complaints, concerns and words of encouragement for the good doctor from vermont. and, as before, they were great in listening and thanking me for taking time out to call and voicing my concerns.

i called the offices of the california democratic party. the office in sacramento has always been rude, unresponsive and condescending. they basically told me "tough luck" in a very snotty tone of voice. the office in los angeles was an entirely different story. i had a great intelligent discussion with the woman who answered the phone. we bantered. we laughed. we weighed pros and cons of not voting. she empathized. hell....if i could remember her name i recommend we put her on the next gubernatorial ballot. (note to california democrats - don't bother calling the sacramento office. go straight to the los angeles office.)

i called westly's campaign. i think the silence on the other end of the phone after my rant said it all....

i finally got through to angelides' campaign. the guy at the other end of the line was defensive and slightly condescending. "well if you would only bother to look at the candidates..." he sniped at me. ah...hello, dude. i have. neither one is good enough for my vote.

it feels good to get some concerns off of ones chest. it's telling to hear the various responses to my concerns. makes me want to do it daily. hmmmm......

my call for tomorrow....to nancy pelosi's office to tell her to "go girl" and thank her for standing up to the black caucus. if we have a dirty dem in the house...time to do some cleaning. it has nothing to do with race or position. it has to do with holding our own to the same laws we are accusing the other side of the aisle of breaking. now...if i as a regular american had $90,000 wrapped in tin foil in the fridge and video footage of me taking a $100,000 bribe could i expect to keep my day job without wearing some black and white striped outfit?

oh..and mr. jefferson....you think i'm not paying you f*****king enough to keep honest?hey, tell you what, you egotistic cheeseball....i'll take your healthcare options that my taxes go to paying for you....i have no healthcare coverage. i could use access to a doctor or dentist one of these years.

Pathetic conservatives

Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or "betrayed" by him. He is, in essentials, precisely who he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my NYFD friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised.

I am feeling agreeable so to The Anchoress, I'll say, yes, perhaps you are a dim bulb.

This is the aWol Apologist at her purest. The praising of aWol for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when what anyone with the ability to think critically would recognize as one of the greatest failures ever by a president.

There's the standard misrepresentation by the conservatives too...

There were no surprises when he went after an Iraq which everyone believed had WMD...

As Wolcott points out, The Anchoress writes like Peggy Noonan at her most shrill although even Noonan has shown an inclination of late to throw Bush under the bus. She at least recognizes Bush is an anchor to sink the conservative movement whereas The Anchoress just can't seem to understand that if everyone is running away from aWol, it is because he is a monster and not the hero she wishes him to be.

But what really shows how dishonest or insufferably unobservant The Anchoress to be was this:

When my NYFD friends told me...

Would anyone who really has friends on the Fire Department write "NYFD?" I've only visited New York twice in my life. Once on my honeymoon and once after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when the New York Times wrote an editorial pleading for tourists to return to the city to save the city's economy. I passed by many fire stations on that grim day caused by Bush's inattention to the numerous warnings given to him of an impending attack. (Just as he ignored the Hurricane Katrina warnings later.)

And I know this. Anchoress, it is FDNY. This is a long standing point of pride with the firefighters and EMS workers. It is not the kind of mistake anyone who really has friends on the FDNY would ever make.

The Anchoress is not attached to reality in believing the American public failed aWol and not the other way around. Nor is she much attached to telling the truth. And those explain why she is able to be a proud supporter of aWol.

it's snow season

treasury secretary john snow has signaled to the white house he is ready to leave once president bush has picked a successor, administration officials and people close to snow said thursday. - ap

the bush administration was said to have sounded out some top wall street executives, including goldman sachs chairman henry paulson, but was having trouble attracting a candidate from the financial markets to serve at treasury for the remaining 2 1/2 years of bush's tenure. - the boston globe

"and the new treasury secretary, what a record we have here! john snow, chairman of a champion corporate tax-dodger. according to citizens for tax justice, snow's company, csx corp., a railroad, paid no federal income tax at all in three of the past four years. instead of paying taxes, csx supplemented its over $1 billion in pretax profits (los angeles times) over the four years with a total of $164 million in tax rebate checks from the federal government. just the guy we need at treasury -- makes a profit, pays no taxes and gets tax rebates on the taxes he didn't pay. during the same period, csx gave snow $36 million in salary, bonuses, stock and options, and forgave a $24 million loan so he would not lose money along with other shareholders as the company's stock price declined. lends a whole new meaning to 'snow job.' - sourcewatch

california dreamin'

for the latest on what blogtopia (yes! we coined that phrase!) has to say about california's upcoming primary, we direct you to jsw's diary at calitics, which discusses angelides v. westley v. schwarzenegger, pombo, doolittle, winograd (and our own musings about harman) as well as immigration and other various and sundry items upcoming in the june 6 election.

have you thanked the little energy company

snohomish county public utility district (pud) today publicly released a new set of evidence showing enron energy traders fabricated repair needs in order to take a nevada power plant offline during the height of power blackouts in california in early 2001. the evidence also highlights illegal gaming schemes that crossed into canada and involved senior enron officials. pud evidence reveals that enron’s market manipulation started at least two years prior to the western energy crisis as part of a premeditated plan to reap unjust profits from western consumers. the evidence was filed this week at the federal energy regulatory commission (ferc) as part of the pud's efforts to void a $122 million lawsuit by enron against the pud.

“beyond the illegal nature of enron's gaming of the energy market, its insensitivity to human suffering is reprehensible,” said pud general counsel michaelgianunzio. “countless consumers and businesses lost thousands of dollars during blackouts. this new evidence reaffirms that ferc should require enron to disgorge all illegal profits and to void the $122 million termination payment that enron is seeking from the pud.

da vinci is like the beatles: bigger than christ

tho here in the usa, the da vinci code opened slightly lower than the first weekend of william wallace's the passion of the christ, the new tom hanks/magneto/doc ock flick creamed the son of god worldwide, doing especially well in catholic countries. deadline hollywood daily:

sony pictures told me exclusively this morning that da vinci code earned $224 million worldwide, making it the second biggest opening weekend of all time worldwide. (the only movie that did better was star wars 3, the last of the prequels, with $254 mil). that dvc figure broke down to $147 mil internationally, and $77 mil domestically. the studio told me that the film is the no. 1 all-time opening weekend internationally. dvc was #1 in predominantly catholic countries italy and spain, and #1 or #2 in every south american territory…according to box office mojo, dvc ranked #13 on the all-time u.s. opening weekend, behind mel gibson's the passion of the christ. but, internationally, dvc swamped passion.

of course, the box office sweepstakes isn't the only reason the faithful are upset at dvc (which makes it sound like a tv shopping network). william wallace himself came out strong against the fact that people might think it was, well, fact:

mel gibson has gone a bit ”mad max” over the “da vinci code.” the director of “the passion of the christ” says that the latest hit movie based upon religion “weaves facts with maverick theories” reports a web site citing hollywood.com as its source.

however, gibson of all people should be the last person to criticize any film for taking dramatic license by positing theories and/or spinning some imagined history.

after all, the former maverick had more than a few “maverick” moments in his jesus movie.

personally, we find it highly ironic when anybody who takes the bible as literal fact gets upset over the possibility that somebody else might believe a movie.

the real reason, in our opinion, that the faithful are getting the vapors over dvc is not so much that movie-goers would suddenly stop believing in christ and start believing in dan brown. no, we think that the religious officialdom of christianity is worried that the "faithful" might do something even worse...start asking questions! like san luis obispo resident connie hasley:

it was like, ‘gosh, is this true? did it really happen that way?’ ” the 41-year-old mother of two said. “i remember thinking, ‘this could really change people’s perception.’ ”

according to hasley, the novel’s main premise — that the catholic church spent centuries covering up the idea that jesus christ married and had a child — didn’t rock her faith as a christian. but it made her realize how little she knows about the founding of her own religion.

“now i really do want to know what pieces are totally bogus and what pieces are true,” she said.

heaven forbid (literally) that blue-collar work-a-day christians start reading up on the council of nicaea...when church leaders decided which parts of the bible would be included in the official version...and whether or not jesus was divine.

apologia

multiple dkossacks dressed us down for using the world "slut" (as in, "jane, you ignorant slut") and some over at booman were quite perturbed at our use of "nancyboys" to describe the pusilanimous repubbbs that would surrender civil rights in the mock-war against "terra."

we now realize we may have offended a great deal of people. we have reconsidered, and now wish to offer our regrets in an act of sincere contrition.

happy third blogiversary*

Podcast with congressional candidate

Check out my interview of Tom Wyka, candidate for Congress in New Jersey's 11th district, at Bluejersey. Enjoy the fun as he and I share a laugh about the prospect of incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen (R) doing the right thing.

an offer he can't refuse...

...listen denny, the man owns your house! you got it? that's rule number one. he can come in anytime he wants and you just put out a plate of cold cuts and some scotch and welcome him like royalty, okay?

after all, mr. rove was just having the fbi go after a black democratic congressman to play the race card and shift the focus from the ongoing revelations about the republican mob. it was a two-fer. magnifico!

and what did you do? you ruined the operation.

you start screaming about how "your house" was violated and the separation of powers and all that stuff that gave me a headache in high school. the man is the power: there ain't no separation. you dig, denny?

and then you sign a letter with that democratic lady -- "poodle pelosi" -- asking the fbi to return the files they seized from that black guy's office. man, you're lucky you're still breathing, my friend. you got mud all over karl's good work. you sat on his cheese sandwich. a made man like yourself ought to know better...

guilty!

Saving the Internet: Net Neutrality Actions Today

A critical vote is going down in Congress right now and we need you to get phones ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill.

The House Judiciary Committee is beginning to "mark up" a good Net Neutrality bill at around 11am (EST) this morning. Then they're going to vote on whether to bring it to the full floor. Many in the Committee are being pressured by AT&T, Verizon and other major telcos to vote down the net neutrality provisions in this bipartisan bill.

Below are the members who need to hear from you and your readers to support this important bill. Urge them to support the Sensenbrenner-Conyers "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006" (HR 5417) in the Judiciary Committee -- and to support it without amendment. (Saying without amendment is key as the telcos want to re-write it in a way that guts Internet freedom).

Here are the members who need to hear from you and your readers right now:

Freedom is on the stumble

Apparently it is now a crime in public schools for a kid to write something, on his own time on his own web log, about how he is being disciplined for complaining about his school on his own time on his own web log.

The ACLU has the case. I'm rooting for freedom in all its ugly rawness.

not much under the hat

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

a valid reason to love that random "next blog" button at the top of blogger sites

we found susanne's blog, where she describes her "date with the dixie chicks." apparently she somehow got into a media presentation with natalie, marnie and the other one, who answered questions and sang some songs for a select audience of a hundred people or so.

the email features a “one-pager on the truth behind liberal hollywood’s the big buy,” and the lead item is colbert’s interview with greenwald on comedy central (where colbert plays a faux-conservative, o’reilly-esque character). the headline of the “fact sheet”:

hollywood pulls michael moore stunt on delaycolbert cracks the story on real motivations behind the movie

delay thinks colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. and why not? according to the email, greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “who hates america more, you or michael moore?”

too bad for delay that rowan and martin stopped doing "news of the future," he might like to know if he's going to jail or not.

say hello

an inconvenient email

we got the following missive from moveon.org:

an inconvenient truth" opens in hollywood tonight and it's already creating a buzz across the country. thousands of us are headed to the theater tonight and this weekend to see it. some of the shows are already sold out.

how the movie does today and over the weekend will determine how it's received in the press and even how many other cities get to see it. that's why we're asking folks to pledge and get tickets in advance to see the film.

you can sign the pledge and buy tickets to the film (for any day) through the link below. just click here:

you'll also be invited to join a special conference call with al gore in early june where you can learn more about global warming and ask him questions. plus, paramount classics just announced that it will donate 5% of ticket sales to the alliance for climate protection—so just by going to see the film, you'll be donating to help fight global warming.

the movie is technically a documentary, but it's also been described as a thriller and some folks have even called it scary. it's scary because it's a serious look at the grave path we're heading down if we don't take real steps to stop global warming today. i've seen it and it's a powerful film. even though i pay pretty close attention to these issues, it made me think about the crisis we face in a whole new way…

you can check out the trailer here. then, please sign the pledge and get tickets to see it by clicking below:

survey says: good golly miss molly....

so i gets t' readin' it. first song on the list: "won't get fooled again" by the who. i damn near fouled my boxers, i was laughing so hard. (note to self: in the future, blog first, pig out on pizza later.) are these people for real?! they adopted a british band's song about the unfairness of the british system circa 1971 as their american conservative anthem? were their drugs kicking in at the time, or wearing off?!

and what does this song's chorus say about their inherent gullibility? i get on my knees and pray we won't get fooled again -- hel-lo-ooo, could you wonder bread types pretty please with sugar on it peel yourselves away from american idol and fox news long enough to... oh, i dunno... give a f&#k?

okay, stupid question. more the fool me. let's try a different tack.

better yet, let's launch a new survey:

what are the 50 greatest liberal rock songs of all time?

'cause when you think about it, "rock songs" and "conservative" go together the way water and oil do. rock and roll, whatever it looks like nowadays, has always been a liberal animal. leave your selections in the comments section, or e-mail them to me. (i won't rank them when all's said and done, i'll just announce the most popular fifty -- the last survey i conducted evolved into a migraine.)

jane stop this crazy thing

continuing our discussion of jane "not bozo larry" harman and her race to keep her seat from marcy winograd (who might actually get something done), we direct you to a couple of comments from when we posted our diary on dkos (we are saving you from the majority of commenters, who, missing the point entirely, assumed we were right wing trolls for using the word "slut," as in, "jane, you ignorant slut." and they say the left has no sense of humor.

i would not be surprised if she went ballistic on a pelosi staffer at one time or on one who made it to a position where that person could exert some payback on her.

her reputation for how she treated her staff and the staff of other congresspersons was pretty legendary when i was there a little over ten years ago. every time i see her on tv, as a matter of fact, i still get the willies.

i have seen staffers from other offices come back to the office after a meeting where she was at in tears. not once but twice with two different people. she gets mean-spiritied and personal and thinks nothing of berating staff in public. i never worked for her, nor ever would.

as a matter of fact, i quit the whole capitol hill game after seeing that kind of crap from people like her and seeing that the other side had just taken over. there are people who are vindictive and almost insane. then there is her.

i would look at a congressional directory going back to that time i was there (i am not sure if this is true now) and look up how much her staff rotated. i don't thinkl even wal-mart had that kind of rotation. let's just say it was an inside joke amongst dem staffers that they would starve before they even considered applying at her office (these were staffers who lost their jobs in 1994).

i don't want to engage in anything else specifically because it was not anything i saw first hand. i stayed far, far away from her.

why did you run away from the code pink members at the venice farmers' market? it cannot be a surprise that many, if not most, of your constituents in this area are against the war in iraq. i'm know that you heard from us in the months preceding the invasion, and continue to hear from us. we are now the majority in this country.

you have much to answer for regarding your support for this illegal war. what have you done regarding the illegal use of torture, the misrepresentation of intelligence to justify the invasion of iraq? what will you do to prevent the invasion and/or bombing of iran? why do you think you are qualified to represent us?

to which ms. harman failed to reply. venice ca, in another diary, described the incident to which she referred, as related to her by her husband, an eye-witness:

the following was related to me by my husband:

jane harman comes to the friday morning venice farmers' market to meet and greet voters in her district. it's a small farmers' market as these things go in los angeles. it's easy to see everything that's going on in the parking lot where it's held.

unfortunately for ms. harman, jodie evans of code pink is in her district, as well as a code pink office. while my husband is finishing the shopping, he sees a several code pink women approaching jane harman. they ask her the hard questions on iraq, and are not satisfied with her refusal to call for an end to the occupation. on his way to join the group to speak with ms. harman, he sees her turn and stalk out of the market.

he was particularly struck by the fact that ms. harman lost her temper at her constituents when pressed on her politics. he wanted to ask the same questions, but as he said, "the ladies beat me to it."

venice has a reputation as a politically active community with a progressive (detractors say socialist!) and pacifist agenda. could jane harman be so ignorant of her district that she didn't know that her support of the iraq war would be challenged if she appeared in venice?

during last year's municipal elections, venice supported progressive bill rosendahl for la city council. his was a grass roots campaign that inspired us to get out the vote. he won. we are hoping for the same with marcy.

we grew up during the 60's, when america had a real enemy, an enemy that could actually blow this country up: the soviet union. a country with a real government, a real army, a real cadre of nuclear missiles and submarines which, at any moment, was poised to shoot across the oceans onto our heads.

we grew up with the fear of air raid sirens going off at any possible moment; we grew up with the constant rehearsals in school of "duck and cover," as if the wooden slate of our desks were going to shield us from the 20 megaton nuclear bomb implanted in the nose of the icbm theoretically heading down towards our quivering little bodies.

we grew up when the leader of the biggest industrialized state in the world threatened that "we will bury you." we grew up when our enemy was a country 8 times bigger than our own, with the third largest population on earth (much larger than ours), ready to dominate the world at any moment.

we were young adults when that same country sent spies and cells and undercover agents to work their ways into our society, ready to wreck havoc on us at the drop of a "tovarich" from their masters halfway across the world (anyone remember charles bronson in "telefon"?)

we knew the constant possibility of nuclear war from the time we were old enough to understand about countries and the world, and the evil that men do.

we walked through life facing down a real enemy, an enemy which proclaimed its desire to infect the world with its own way of thinking, without ever once giving up any of the civil liberties our forefathers built into our way of government and which our fathers fought and bled on foreign shores to protect.

vandals with cell phones didn't make us poop our pants. hooligans that liked to blow themselves up didn't send us cowering in fear in the corner, crying, "please, mommy, make them stop, take away our rights as citizens, destroy our way of life, just make those mean brown people stop wearing cloth on their heads and insisting their god is bigger and badder than ours, we are so helpless, and we just can't join the armed forces and fight them ourselves!"

because make no mistake about it, friends, the "war on terra" is less about fighting some ill-defined political-cum-religious platform than it is part of the greater war against the mud people.

is it a coincidence that the same administration that denigrates the most popular religion in the worlds as a religion of hate, also wants to militarize our southern border, with nary a peep about posting soldiers along that long, long open demarcation between minnesota and ontario?

no, it is, to paraphrase public enemy, fear of a brown planet that drives this entire enterprise.

there is no reason that a disorganized bunch of fundamentalist enemies should shut this entire country down. we've faced enemies before.

make a note of that: america has always had enemies, and america has always survived, nay, even flourished long past the demise of those enemies.

it's just the way of the world. them that gots, gots enemies. deal with it.

but you don't deal with it but giving up what you gots, while the folks in charge that are constantly crying "wolf" are secretly scooping up all that you have relinquished in your panic-striken attempt to be good citizens.

it's time to stand up to the nancy boys. go toe to toe with the namby-pamby poopy pantsers. if some religious nut with a bomb on his belly halfway around the world makes those self-soiled bullies cry in their bedrooms about how terrible things are, imagine what those same bullies would do if we, collectively, actually stood our ground and said, "no. these are our rights. this is our country. you will not take them away from us through fear and hype and echo chamber reverberations.

testing

a loaf and fish in every pot

bark bark woof woof tells us that crist is running for governor of florida...no, not jesus, but apparently his long-lost cousin charlie:

a reverend who introduced republican gubernatorial candidate charlie crist during a breakfast with other pastors monday said the lord came to him in a dream two years ago and told him crist would be the state's next governor.

the rev. o'neal dozier said that before the dream he did not know crist, nor had crist made known his plans to run for governor.

"the lord jesus spoke to me and he said 'there's something i want you to know,'" said dozier, pastor of the worldwide christian center in pompano beach. "'charlie crist will be the next governor of the state of florida.'"

the da vicious code

skimble points out that one reason that the secret organization opus dei (the engine that drives the plot in da vinci code) is so secretive, is that their roster includes a veritable who's who of conservative neo-con-artists:

but the basic problem of opus dei's conspiratorial weirdness may in fact be weirder than albinos and bloody cilices. its alleged conspirators include mark belnick, former tyco counsel and former jew and former $37 million corporate scandal profiteer, and his crazy conservative catholic cabal recruiter father c. john mccloskey who also hooked publishing executive alfred regnery up with his first opus dei fix.

besides the obvious lure of tyco lucre, mccloskey is drawn to converts of a particular ideology. his list of converts beyond belinick and regnery sounds like a conspiracy theorist's dream:

dr. bernard nathanson, founder of the national abortion rights action league, who was personally involved in 75,000 abortions, before becoming a prominent pro-life advocate with the book "aborting america" and the stunning video, "the silent scream."

lawrence kudlow, a cnbc economic commentator, whose career was nearly ruined by a cocaine addiction before his conversion.

robert novak, a syndicated political columnist for 40 years and a non-practicing jew, often called "the prince of darkness" for his gloomy presence on cnn's "crossfire" and "the capital gang."

u.s. sen. sam brownback, a methodist and a conservative who teamed up with liberal sen. paul wellstone to sponsor a law to curb sex trafficking, which brings 50,000 prostitutes for brothels in the u.s. annually.

judge robert bork, who was nominated by president reagan to the supreme court, but suffered defeat in a democratic senate opposed to his pro-life views.

fair protest

saveaccess.org, a national coalition of community media organizations and individuals, is coordinating a nationwide day of protests with actions taking place in new york city, chicago, boston, san francisco on wednesday, may 24th.

fair is helping to organize the new york city protest.

join us. make your voice heard.

wednesday, may 24that the verizon world headquarters140 west street (at vesey street).

chicagothe event: "at&t: bringing us to tiers"the place: outside the at&t / sbc building, at the intersection of congress parkway and south federal street in downtown chicago (just a block south of the library / state and van buren cta station, immediately west of the harold washington library center)date/time: wednesday, may 24, 4pm - 6pm

san franciscotwo community actions hosted by media alliance12 noon at at&t parkjoin media advocates & community activists out front of the sf giants game for some activist style theatrical sports. help make the point that consumers won't play ball with at&t and other telcos that play ball with the nsa.

Credits

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